‘You don’t think Archer could have killed Kane himself?’

  ‘Nah. I really don’t see that. Why should he involve me if he was going to kill the wee fella?’

  She looked at me doubtfully. ‘In that case, who?’

  ‘Let’s wait and see. Dawn said something yesterday that could give us a clue.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘All in good time, my dear.’

  ‘Oz, don’t be mysterious!’ She stepped close against me once more and kissed my chest. Down in the jungle, a natural force began to stir once more. With a huge effort of will, I steered her towards the door.

  ‘Go, woman,’ I declaimed, ‘and stop trying to seduce me. After breakfast, we’ll work out a game plan. Meantime, I can smell that black pudding.’

  Dad and Mum Phillips are creatures of habit. Their days seem to be more organised than anyone’s I’ve ever met. Breakfast is one of their rituals, and that morning, they clearly enjoyed sharing it with their older child, and with the big, tousle-headed cuckoo who sat beside her at the dining table.

  The black pudding tasted as good as it smelled. Mrs Phillips dished it up together with scrambled eggs and mushrooms, and thick slices of toast. We made small talk as we ate. Dad asked me some more about my work, my family, where I lived, gently filling in the gaps in his knowledge. He looked impressed when I said my father was a dentist.

  Mum muttered that it was a pity that Dawn had rushed off. ‘That’s her all over. Impetuous. One minute she’s going back on Monday morning, next she has to be there for early-morning run-through.’

  At five to nine, it was suddenly all over. ‘Right,’ said Mum, standing up abruptly. ‘Dad and I are off to work. The washing up’s all yours. Come, David. We’ll be in the studio; let us know when you’re ready for the road.’

  I washed, I dried, and Prim supervised, eventually condescending to stack the plates in the kitchen cupboard. ‘Right,’ she said, when she was finished. ‘Decision time. What do we do now, Oz?’

  I reached out a hand for her. You may have noticed that I’m very tactile, as far as Prim is concerned at least. I’m never happier than when I’m touching her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘I reckon it’s time for me to treat Ray Archer to another performance of my Daft Laddie act. There are some things we need to know, and I reckon he might be able to help us … as long as he doesn’t know he’s doing it!’

  In which Ray Archer is immersed in his own Genius

  We said our farewells to Mum and Dad Phillips, in the spacious attic studio which they shared. His bench and lathe was on one side, her Apple Mac computer on the other.

  ‘You’ll take care of the police business for Dawn, will you, Primavera?’ Mr Phillips asked, still a touch anxiously.

  ‘No, Dad,’ she said. ‘Dawn’s going to phone them this morning. We agreed that was the best way to handle it.’

  ‘And you, Primavera,’ said her mother. ‘What will you do when you get back to Edinburgh? Start looking for a hospital job?’

  ‘Give me a break, Mum. I think I’ve earned a holiday over the last year.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you have. Don’t let it last too long, though. You know what they say about the Devil and idle hands.’

  Prim laughed, and dug me in the ribs with an elbow. ‘Hear that, Devil?’ she murmured.

  Rather than retrace our route to Perth, we took the twisty road down from Auchterarder through the hills, and picked up the motorway just south of Kinross. I tried to call Archer on the mobile, but the cloud was low, and we were in a dead zone for transmission until we were in sight of the Forth Bridge.

  Eventually, I got through. When he came on the line, he spoke quietly, as if he had company. ‘I need to see you,’ I said. ‘I’ve found Kane’s girlfriend. She was out of town when he was killed, and she doesn’t have the fiver. I have to meet you today, to talk about what we do next.’

  ‘Okay,’ Archer whispered. ‘But not in the office. Meet me at midday, in the Abbotsford.’

  I hate going into pubs at lunchtime. Nearly always, I feel guilty, and wonder about everyone else who’s in there taking in alcohol in the middle of what should be a working day. (Oz Blackstone, closet prude!) The Abbotsford’s an exception though. It’s a real characterful place, still in its original wood panelling, with a big oval bar, and a few booths with benches for those who prefer to drink sitting down.

  Prim and I agreed that there were no plus points to be gained from introducing her to Archer at that stage, so when we reached Rose Street, she ducked into Marks amp; Spencer to replenish her knicker stock while I shouldered my way through the brass-handled double doors of the old pub.

  The Abbotsford was still relatively quiet; the place smelled of mutton pies heating in the oven and beans on the hob, being made ready to be hoovered up by the lunchtime rush. There was no sign of Archer in the bar, but when I looked into the back room, I found him there, sat, alone, at a table, nursing a half-pint of Guinness.

  He offered me a drink, but I said a quick ‘No thanks’ and sat down facing him. As usual there were no preliminaries. ‘Where did you find the girl?’ he asked at once.

  I treated myself to the luxury of telling him the truth. ‘She was up in Perthshire, with her parents. She was there at the time Kane was killed, and she can prove it.’

  He looked at me over his Guinness. ‘D’you think she was in the know about it, though?’

  ‘No chance. She wanted shot of the wee man all right, but not that way.’

  ‘She said she doesn’t have the fiver?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ There was more than an edge of doubt in his tone.

  ‘Yes. Kane spun her a story about wanting to squirrel his money away from his wife, before he left her. He told her she’d have every penny, otherwise. Dawn’s an actress. She’s got an active imagination, so it wasn’t difficult for her to take his story at face value. She was sorry for him so she agreed to help him set up the account. When she got back, she gave him the fiver, and that’s the last she saw of it.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me she doesn’t know about the missing money?’

  ‘That’s what she said, and from the way she looked at me when I asked her about it, I believe her.’

  His look was one of pure scorn. I was annoyed even before he opened his mouth. Afterwards, I was downright angry. ‘Come on Blackstone!’ He spat it out, his eyes narrowing. ‘Who are you trying to kid? Know what, I reckon you’re shagging this tart now. I reckon you and she have done a deal about the money!’

  Temper and Oz are not normally associated, one with the other. I’ve never taken a pop at anyone in my life, but I’ve never come closer to it than I did with Ray Archer right then. Instead, and it was as if my hand made its own decision, independent of my brain, I picked up his Guinness and threw it in his face.

  He started off his bench. I thought he was going to take a swing at me, and so, before he was even halfway upright, I shoved him back on to his pin-striped arse.

  Now it was me spitting out the words. I don’t know whose voice I was using, but it didn’t sound like mine. ‘You say that just once more, pal, and I’m going to make a phone call to a guy I know on Scotland on Sunday. Then I’m going to see my lawyer. After that, he and I are going to see Inspector Dylan.

  ‘If you want to end up twisting in the wind, with all your partners beside you, then just keep it up.’

  His head went down; he took his hankie from his breast pocket and mopped his dripping face. ‘I’m sorry, Oz,’ he said softly, gazing at the table, not at me. In those seconds his tone changed from aggressive to wheedling. I disliked that just as much. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. My firm has ten partners and forty employees. The career of every one of them is riding on my shoulders, and it’s getting to me. You’re the last person I should be upsetting. Please forgive me.’

  His protestations of concern for his workforce were lost on me. He was only thinking about money… his money. ‘Level with me, Mr Archer,’ I said, recovering the normal Oz tone, ‘how long do I have to get your funds back?’

  ‘A week at the outside. Our client’s abroad just now. He’ll be back in Edinburgh in ten days.’

  ‘And if we don’t get it back, what’s the down-side? Do you really go bust?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you can’t get that money back by next Monday, my partners and I, and that means mostly me, will have to cover the loss and probably pay a premium to buy back the stock that Kane sold. With luck, we’ll keep the firm afloat, but …’ He gazed up at me, with what he hoped would look like desperation.

  ‘At the moment, only you, my financial controller and I know about this thing. If I have to tell my partners, that makes it all the more dangerous for us. After that, just one tongue loosened in the Drum and Monkey by one pint too many and it could be all up for Black and Muirton.’

  A sudden thought ran down my spine, like a mouse with very cold feet.

  ‘Tell me about your financial controller.’

  Archer smiled, wanly. ‘Jerry? No, Oz. Forget it. Jerry Hannah’s sixty-nine years old, and he has a bad heart. Apart from all that, he’s the tightest-mouthed old bastard I know. If you told Jerry a secret he wouldn’t even repeat it back to you.’

  ‘And you’ve told no-one else?’

  He shook his head, but there was a hesitation there. ‘No. Only my wife. I told her the whole story last Monday, as soon as I’d pieced it all together, about the theft, about Berners and the bank account, and how Kane and the girl had set it up. I told her I was going to hire you to get the money back.’ He gave me one of those man to man glances. ‘I had to confide in someone. Anyway, Marian and I make a point of having no secrets.’

  I gave him the nod he expected.

  ‘I don’t suppose Willie Kane would have told anyone about his scam. I mean he and Mrs Kane weren’t exactly on pillow-talk terms any more, were they?’

  He gave a short, choked off laugh. ‘No indeed. God, when I think about it, poor Marian. Getting my worries and Linda’s at the same time. I told you, she’s Linda Kane’s best friend. We’re near neighbours, so they see each other every day. Linda used to work for Black and Muirton, you know. That’s how she and Willie met. She was his secretary. The odd couple, and no mistake.’

  ‘Mrs Kane must have been pretty upset when he walked out on her. Then with him being killed, your wife must have had a hard time with her.’

  Archer snorted. ‘From what Marian says, “grief-stricken” isn’t quite the term for her. She was absolutely furious when he left. But “incandescent”, was how Marian described her after the murder. I suppose we all build walls against bereavement in different ways.’

  Suddenly he snapped back into his businesslike mode. ‘So what are you going to do next, Oz? The trail of that banknote must be pretty cold, if Willie’s girl doesn’t have it.’

  So far, I had gone through our conversation without telling Archer a single porky-pie; now I was struggling to keep up my run. I could have said, ‘Look Ray, it’s all right, I’ve got the fiver,’ but something held me back. Probably it was the fact that somewhere in the city, outside the Abbotsford, was the guy who had killed Kane to get that banknote. That and the thought that, one way or another, unwittingly or wittingly, Archer must have put him on the trail. I thought about Kane, and that knife, and all of a sudden my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. The less Archer knew, the safer it would be for Prim and me.

  I gazed at him with an expression that was meant to be contemplative, but which really hid the fact that I hadn’t a clue what to do next. But at last, it came to me. ‘I think it’s time I paid a call on a lady,’ I said, in Private Eye-speak, turned on my heel and walked out of the pub, leaving him to the impossible task of wiping drying Guinness stains off a pale blue shirt.

  In which we meet the Widow Kane and find her wanting in the grief department

  ‘Oz, I know you’re daft; you don’t have to go proving it all the time.’ From the moment of our meeting, Prim’s faith in my judgement has been touching. ‘What will we say to the woman?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. I just think we should go along to offer our sympathies. Remember what Dawn said about her. She was two-timing Willie, according to him at least.’

  Primavera looks wonderful when her smile is just about to erupt into laughter. When she throws her head back and laughs it sounds like the pealing of a chime of bells. Right at that moment, the ringers had a good grip on the ropes.

  ‘So we just walk in there, and ask her about it, do we?’

  ‘Not quite, but there’s one thing we might learn, if we play our cards right. Just think back to what Dawn said about her.’ She thought for only a few seconds, then caught on. Much quicker than her sister, is Prim. When it comes to it, she’s much quicker than me. ‘I remember now. And you think …’

  When you’re really in love, telepathy is a perfectly feasible proposition.

  We found the address with no difficulty at all. In the back of the car, we still had a copy of the Evening News which carried the report of his identification, complete with a photo of Chez Kane. Even for a stockbroker, it looked quite a place. It was a big villa along Ravelston Dykes, one of those streets in Edinburgh where the poor folk aren’t encouraged to get out of their cars.

  As I parked the Nissan, defiantly, Prim gazed at the house through the wrought-iron railings which topped the small garden wall. She whistled softly. ‘Poor Willie must really have been stuck on our Dawn to walk out of this pile,’ she whispered.

  ‘Or he must really have hated his wife,’ I said.

  The only downmarket thing about the house was the car in the driveway. It was a silver Calibra, where you’d have expected a Five-series Beamer at the very least. But, still, it was top-of-the-range, with a personalised ‘LBK’ number plate.

  I took a quick peek through the living-room window as we approached the front door, hustling along in the light rain, which had been threatening all day. Where Semple House was genuine Charles Addams, ‘Achnasheen’, for thus it had been named by a fanciful builder, was genuine Vogue. The furniture was modem but nondescript, white leather settees, a dull high-board, a hi-fi rack and speakers against the far wall. Prim tugged me towards the front door and rang the bell.

  It took a second ring before the door was opened, by a reddish-haired woman. She leaned against the jamb, perspiring and breathing heavily. She looked well on the fleshy side in her leotard and tights, ankle-warmers and trainers, her bosom jiggling formidably as it rose and fell. In the background, an aerobics tape pounded on loudly.

  She looked at us as she recovered her wind. For the faintest moment I thought I saw alarm in her eyes; but probably I imagined it. This was a woman who would not be alarmed by heavy machine gun fire. ‘Yes?’ she gasped, eventually.

  ‘Mrs Kane?’ I asked. She nodded, and I ploughed on as wide-eyed and friendly as could be. ‘Sorry if it’s an inconvenient time, but we wondered if we might have a word with you?’

  She was breathing normally now, and looked formidably hostile. ‘You’re not more bloody press, are you?’ I noticed that her voice was harder than the norm among Ravelston matrons.

  ‘Heavens no,’ I said airily.

  ‘Oh Christ, not the fucking Witnesses, surely! Sunday was yesterday, chum.’

  I smiled, trying to appease her. ‘No, Mrs Kane, we’re not witnesses. Not that sort, anyway. We, I, wanted to talk to you about your husband. My name’s Oz Blackstone. I don’t know if the police told you, but it was us who found Mr Kane.’

  The hostility lessened a bit, but she was still a long way from offering an embrace. ‘I see. So? Do you expect a fucking reward?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Well, my girlfriend and I thought we should maybe come along to see you, just to, well comfort you if we could.’

  ‘Do I look as if I need comforting?’

  I almost told her she looked as if she needed a couple of weeks on Slimfast, and a compassion transplant, but I held back. We hadn’t come just to be slung off her doorstep. Eventually she gave in. ‘Oh, come on in, if you must. The Cindy Crawford workout’s left me shagged out anyway.’ She turned in the doorway and pressed a TV remote. In the background, Cindy was cut off in her splendid prime.

  She led us into the ‘no imagination’ living room. A packet of Benson and Hedges lay on the mantelpiece. She took out a fag and lit it with a big Ronson table model, offering the pack to us as she inhaled.

  ‘So,’ she said, as the blue smoke gave the room its only real colour. ‘What did you want to tell me about the dear departed?’

  ‘Well, we thought you might like to know that it seemed as if he didn’t suffer, that it was pretty quick.’

  She took another drag, and looked at me as if I was an idiot. Right then, that was how I felt; if you called Linda Kane a hard cow, you’d be insulting bovines everywhere. ‘I’d worked that one out, son. Who d’you think identified the little shit? I imagine that if someone skewers your top-piece you go straight to the Pearly Gates, no stopping.

  ‘More’s the pity,’ she added with venom.

  ‘Oh, come on Mrs Kane,’ surprising myself by coming to the adulterous embezzler’s defence.

  ‘Come on nothing. The little bastard left me. He walked out on me for some fucking tart … on me! After all I’ve done for him. I made him at Black and Muirton, you know. The number of times I covered up for him. To look at him you’d never have thought he’d the brains to …’ She stumbled, very slightly, then caught herself, ‘… put his hat on the right way round.

  ‘Nearly said something rude there.’ She added, with a coyness that sat on her as easily as a nun on a rodeo bull.

  ‘So you found him, did you?’ She looked at Prim. ‘That means you, dear, must be that little tart’s sister. Little bastard or not he was my little bastard; And anyone who takes what’s mine… Fucking little tart!’